Split

by Taslima Nasrin

  Minu informed me that Lajja was doing very well, the first edition had been exhausted in no time and he was confident that very soon the second edition too would be over and he would have to commission a third. I was astonished to learn that in only a few days of the book fair a few thousand copies of Lajja had been sold. Why would someone want to buy Lajja? What was in that book? It was not a love story, nor did it have a fantastic and intriguing plot. It was a fact-laden, simply written account of something everyone was aware of. Usually readers never favoured such books.

  No sooner did I take a seat at the Pearl Publications stall than a line of people eager to buy the book formed out of nowhere. Not that everyone wanted to buy Lajja specifically because they knew about it. Many bought the book simply because they wished to buy a new book. Many came to the stall to ask if there was a new Taslima Nasrin book and, when informed about Lajja, they bought it immediately, some even going so far as to buy multiple copies. Even vendors from other stalls were coming for fifty to a hundred copies at a time to take to their own stalls. At first I assumed it was mostly Hindus who were buying the book but when many of them approached me for autographs I heard their names and realized that many were not.

  The more the book sold the more anxious I got, thinking that after reading a couple of pages people were going to hate it. Were they buying the book because they were admirers of my work or were they buying the book specifically because they knew what it was about? I had no way of knowing which of these was true and neither could I ask any of them. As the crowd for the book increased so did the crowd for those hoping to get an autograph and I could not put my pen down for even a breather. Sahidul was sitting beside me, Khusro was standing at the door and his strong friends were scattered about here and there. So many people loved me, so many read my books and I was supposed to feel unsafe in the book fair? Perhaps Khusro thought the same too. He excused himself and went off on a stroll for a little while.

  It happened some time later. No one could have anticipated something like it. There was a group of people surrounding the open area in front of the stall. All of us inside the hall noticed much to our surprise that in only a few minutes a few hundred people had gathered behind this huddled group. There was a colossal crowd around the stall, none of whom wanted to buy books. None of them were moving either. Someone from the stall called out to them and asked what they wanted and why they were blocking others if they did not wish to come in themselves. No answer came from the crowd except for a collective holler that went on for a while. The sound was not a pleasant one and under his breath Minu asked me to pull my chair back further inside the stall. There was a nearly two-foot-wide gap between the crowd and us, where a long table had been placed. As requested I pushed my chair further back inside. Almost immediately the crowd started making an odd sound that slowly morphed into slogans: ‘Get her, beat her’; ‘Break her head, tear off her clothes, break her hands’.

  Someone inside the stall was crying for the police and Minu asked them to run to the police and get help. There was no way out, though, because the mouth of the stall was completely blocked and not even an insect could have slipped past. Suddenly, someone threw a stone and in a flash there was a shower of stones aimed at me by the crowd outside. Some whizzed past my ears while most hit me. By then both Sahidul and Minu were in front of me shielding me from the stone-pelters, while I sat there pale and numb from the shock. Big rocks were being thrown at the stall, aimed at the shelves, some of which collapsed. Books fell out and scattered everywhere. A stone hit the bulb, which exploded and showered me with shards of glass while plunging the stall into darkness.

  Those inside the stall had a moment’s furtive discussion among themselves; most were perspiring profusely. The crowd of nearly three hundred had begun to push the stall with all their might and the barrier of the long table at the entrance crashed under the weight. The police were standing like silent witnesses not too far away and they had not raised a finger yet. There was no time left to wait for them to do anything either. The people gathered outside were going to finish me and those inside the stall knew they had to do something immediately if they hoped to save me. Within moments they had picked up whatever they could get their hands on: large broken pieces of wood, bamboo, leftover material from the construction of the stall that had been stacked inside.

  Leaping over the broken table, they charged fiercely at the mob outside. The moment the startled mob retreated a few steps to shield themselves from the abrupt attack, two of the waiting policemen swooped in, grabbed me by both my arms, and took me out of the stall. Another group of policemen were behind us providing us cover as we began running. My handbag was missing and so were my shoes, the sari had almost unravelled, and in such a state they somehow managed to take me up to the first floor of the Academy. They pushed me inside and closed the iron gate behind me. By then everyone in the fair had gathered to watch the spectacle of me being dragged from the stall to the Academy. It must have indeed been a spectacle! I stood on the first floor trembling while the police spoke to the director general of the Academy. Afterwards the director general called me and told me in no uncertain terms that I could never come back to the book fair ever again. I was banned from the book fair of the Bangla Academy for life.

  The police dropped me off at my house in Shantibag in the kind of black van they usually used to transport thieves and criminals. On the way one of the police officers said to me, ‘Why do you write about religion? Of course these things will happen if you write about religion.’ Another chimed in, ‘If we hadn’t saved you that would have been the end of you today.’

  A little while later Khusro arrived at Shantibag with Sahidul and Minu. All three were still shell-shocked and once they had had cold water from the fridge Minu informed me that his entire stall had been destroyed and all the books had been looted. Sahidul paced up and down the room and confessed that while the carnage had been playing out he had seen AZ and a few other writers standing a little further away, sipping tea and watching the drama unfold. The crowd had made it impossible for Khusro to come back to the stall and he had urged the police to do something but none of them had been too keen on intervening.

  Through it all I sat quietly. All I could do was replay those terrifying moments in my head again and again; the chill in my bones simply would not leave. I asked them what would have happened if they had not charged at the crowd but none of them had any answer to that. All of us could speculate quite accurately what would have happened.

  ~

  On the eve of 21 February, the Sahid Minar in Dhaka is swathed in a cloth with a giant red sun at its centre. A few hours before the attack on me unknown assailants had set fire to the red sun. Were the men who had done it the same ones who had surrounded the stall at the book fair and cut off the lights? Were they the ones who had plunged my free world into darkness all of a sudden?

  Shamelessness

  TASLIMA NASRIN’S NOVEL ‘LAJJA’ SEIZED!

  In a news report issued last Saturday it was communicated that Taslima Nasrin’s Lajja (First publication February 93, Pearl Publications, 38/2, Banglabazar, Dhaka-1100) has been confiscated by the government as per Article 99-A for spreading misinformation among the people, causing troubles among various communities, inciting communal tension, anti-state rhetoric, and any sale, distribution or preservation of any copy of said book is strictly prohibited.

  —11 July 1993

  This appeared on the front page of the Sunday newspaper and it managed to astonish, shock and unnerve me in equal measure. That Lajja had disrupted communal harmony was an accusation I had never heard before. The prose was not good, it was not a good book, the plethora of facts was too distracting, I had heard all of those things and I acknowledged them too; the book had its faults. I had spent too little time on it and had been unable to consider the quality of the book due to constant pressure from my publisher. But whatever the honourable government could say against my book, it could not accuse me of jeopardizin
g communal harmony. The book was written precisely because there was a lack of communal harmony in the nation, it was written to help inspire concord so that no person ever had to feel persecuted by another because of a difference in their respective faiths. There was a festering wound on the corpus of the country and the book was written to reveal that wound to all so that proper cure could then be arranged. Did that automatically mean I had insulted the body by talking about the wound?

  If Nirbachito Kolam had been banned I would not have been surprised, neither would I have been surprised if Noshto Meyer Noshto Godyo had been banned. In these books I had expressed my personal views on religion that most people in the country did not agree with. But in Lajja there were no opinions on religion. Instead the book wanted to foreground how everyone had an equal right to their own religion and that was how it ought to be. Why the Hindus were being persecuted, how and where it was happening, why they were suffering from so much insecurity that they were considering abandoning their own country for another—this was what I wanted to examine. I wanted to understand everything about their pain and misery.

  A few days after the ban I received a long letter with the words ‘Secret and Confidential’ emblazoned across it. The letter had been sent to the secretaries of the home ministry and the information ministry from the army barracks of Dhaka, written by Brigadier M.A. Halim on behalf of the chief of staff of the army. I had heard that there were two factions within the army, one extremist and the other moderate. It was the former who had sent the order to the government. Even if it did not come across as an order in the strictest sense of the term, ultimately that was what it was. I had no doubts regarding the limitless power that the army enjoyed. It was they who had been in power for the longest time in the history of independent Bangladesh. Some of the non-military governments too had had a gun to their head the entire time. The army was aware that they could march with their guns to seize power, to rule and exploit the country any moment they wished. The prime minister who was in power was an army wife and her convoy used to travel from the barracks too. When the people had no respite from the army how could I expect to be spared? The army had decided Lajja needed to be banned and so that was what had happened. Every decision-maker in the country was subservient to the barrel of the gun.

  The letter began with a short synopsis of the novel and a few excerpts from it. Towards the end, right on the last page, it was written:

  In the subcontinent it is Bangladesh which has the strongest communal ties among its citizens. If religious feelings are hurt and a few stray incidents of communal violence occur, it does not necessarily mean a disruption of this harmonious fabric. When it comes to employment minority Hindus are being given their fair share of opportunities, sometimes more than that. The same goes for businesses. But Madam Taslima Nasrin has etched a fictional portrait of violence on Hindu minorities in her book, provided wrong information regarding opportunities in employment, and has tried to incite the Hindus in the process. Based on such a book by a Muslim writer the international community will simply assume that all the misinformation provided regarding the persecution of Hindu minorities and the suspension of their rights in Bangladesh are true. Besides, this will also create tension between the various communities living in Bangladesh and disturb the existing temperament of peaceful coexistence.

  If someone’s book has the potential to unsettle the communal harmony of a country and incite tension between communities then it is only right that the book is not allowed for public consumption. Madam Taslima Nasrin has ridiculed the communal harmony of the country in her Lajja and has attempted to rile up people of various communities against each other, and for that reason the prohibition of her book and confiscation of all copies from the market is justified.

  This is being sent to you for your knowledge and to ensure appropriate steps are taken.

  Where was it from?

  The Detective Department of the Defence Ministry. 1300/164/D/CIB. Asad 1400/3 July, 1993.

  ~

  Lajja was banned within seven days of this letter. As soon as the ban was declared the police went ahead and confiscated every single copy of the book from booksellers in Dhaka. Besides, a team from the Special Branch raided Banglabazar and seized all the copies they could get their hands on and carried them away in trucks, even the half-bound or unbound printed pages they found in the printing press on 6 Walter Street. Not just in Dhaka, these sudden raids were carried out all over the country in every bookshop, and wherever the police found the book it was immediately impounded. Published in February, it was banned five months after its release, within which time nearly 60,000 copies had already been sold and the seventh edition was under way. And yet the book was banned! Who did the government wish to prevent from reading the book? Sick of the tortures and crimes perpetrated by an authoritarian government, the people had waged a bloody war for a number of years to drive them out and earn democracy and this was what that hard-earned democracy looked like!

  Shamsur Rahman protested against the ban, not simply by making a statement about it in the newspapers, but via an article he wrote in Bhorer Kagaj:

  I have read the novel. Except for a few aesthetic concerns I have found nothing objectionable in the entire narrative. Taslima has unhesitatingly written the truth and a writer’s greatest responsibility is to do exactly that. Taslima Nasrin is a freethinking and secular individual and it is impossible to accuse her of wishing to incite communal conflict; neither has she ever been one to mislead her readers . . . A young man informed me the other day that after reading Lajja he had felt as if he was Suranjan, the protagonist of the novel. What was the justification behind banning such a book?

  A democratically elected government always maintains that it wants to set up a democratic framework of governance. Everyone knows that freedom of speech and expression is one of the pillars of such a framework. The government is trying to disrupt freedom of speech by banning such a progressive author’s book. However, another book that is boldly inciting its readers to kill Taslima Nasrin is selling freely in the market . . . Personally I am never in favour of prohibiting any book because I don’t believe that a book can bring harm to society. But it is a different matter altogether when a book encourages and provokes someone to commit murder or is a mouthpiece of fascist ideology. All of us who are advocates of a writer’s freedom are demanding the immediate lifting of the embargo on Nasrin’s Lajja. We hope the government will honour our request and prove that they are indeed in favour of democracy and the freedom of speech.

  Rahman’s article appeared in Bhorer Kagaj on 19 July. Another article, by former judge K.M. Sobhan, appeared the very next day. Referring to the vast police force deployed by the government to confiscate copies of Lajja from the markets, Sobhan noted:

  . . . if this show of spontaneity by the police had been demonstrated against the communal terrorists who were running amok in December then perhaps there would not have been any need to write Lajja. No reader will consider what has been said in the book as responsible for inciting tension between communities unless they are themselves a part of communal terrorist outfits, or are sympathizers at the very least.

  Sobhan wrote another column titled ‘Religious fanatics are a source of shame for the government’ where he foregrounded the stark similarities between the autocratic Ershad government and the nationalists who had usurped his power.

  In the case of the autocratic government the influence and provocation of religious fundamentalists had been crucial in paving the way for communal violence. Even though the present government has expressed its disapproval for many of the previous government’s policies it holds remarkably similar views on this one matter. This explains the ban on the collection Glaani and the embargo on Lajja.

  The government was beginning to foam at the mouth trying to assert that it was pro-democracy. But as K.M. Sobhan pointed out a democratically elected government did not automatically guarantee actual adherence to the tenets of democracy.

>   ~

  The government banned Lajja with much fanfare. Barely a month later, the foreign minister, while attending the International Human Rights Conference, had this to say about it:

  Our nation professes its allegiance to the charter of the United Nations and for the very same reason we are also deeply invested in upholding the human rights policies that are its component. This is part of our culture and our constitution. We are a democratic nation and we believe in complete transparency in our dealings. The government is beholden to the people and the Parliament, the press is free, and the Opposition is firm in its political stance. We are ethically invested in upholding human rights . . .

  What a wonderful way of upholding human rights the government had chanced upon. Was there even an iota of resemblance between their promises and their actions? The constitution unequivocally guaranteed the freedom of speech and expression for every citizen but these people hardly cared about anything, let alone the constitution. They had taken over the state as if it was just another branch of their political party, with the assumption that they could play fast and loose with state policy whenever they wished to. And if they wished to they could strip the constitution bare and parade it naked on the road for all to see.

  K.M. Sobhan expressed his outrage over the violations:

  Despite provisions to the contrary in the highest legal document of our country, the constitution, a certain fundamentalist and extremist faction of the government has succeeded in banning the book . . . Every nation in the world is taking steps to uproot such radical and ultra-conservative elements; even the Muslim nations too are a part of this progressive movement . . . It’s only in Bangladesh that the official party in power, grateful to such elements for helping them win the elections, is toeing the line showed by them. These fundamentalist factions are using the democratic process to undermine democracy itself. The government must understand what is happening and not only prohibit such groups but also summarily separate religion from influencing politics.